hey guys,

ive got the t-56 swap done on my car, but since the tranny has been freshly rebuilt (0 miles) i want to take really good care of it from day one.

SO, i can get a B&M supercooler (auto tranny cooler) at a really good price from a friend. is a tranny cooler overkill on a manual tranny for the difference it will make? or is it still a good idea if i can easily afford it?

thanks

Damien

 

A manual trans has no pump, so there's nothing to make oil circulate through an external cooler.

But I suppose you could put some sort of electric pump on it, and plumb it to the drain & fill plug holes.

On the other hand, unless your car's main work day is Sunday, and your office co-workers are named Labonte, Gordon, Earnhardt, etc., I doubt it will do much for you.

 

LOL, perfrect man. thats all i wanted to know. thanks.

 

You might want to fill it with a good quality synthetic ATF, and get a quality aftermarket shifter (Pro 5.0 or Kirban) to protect the shift rail from overshifts (they have adjustable stops to prevent this). A T56 will take a lot of abuse with just these changes.

 

Synthetic can reduce the friction of the synchros to operate correctly. Run non synthetic dexron III and change it - the drain plug makes it easy.

Some of the race Vipers do have a cooler, but it's overkill for most cars.

 

I have heard this before, but personally don't know of any documented case where this has happened. I know lots of LS1 owners who have had synchro problems that may have been blamed on fluid, but their real problem is substandard parts used in those Mexico-built Tremec transmissions. I ran a 95Z hard for 110k miles, most of which was on synthetic, and never had a transmission problem of any kind. Same goes for my 97 SS, no problems after 40k miles of hard driving. It seems that if it reduced friction enough to be a problem, it wouldnt work in an automatic at all.

 

I've "heard" all sorts of crap about all sorts of things where lubricants are concerned; I don't believe most of it.

I run half synthetic ATF and half synthetic gear lube in my 2nd design T-5 (91 model).... been working fine for the last 45,000 miles or so, about 25,000 of which were behind a 400. So it's too early to tell about longevity or any of that. I certainly have no complaints about stiff shifting, I can assure you.

 

I've heard "enough" LS1 people run synth and have synchro problems fix themselves when they switches to non synth to convince me. Again, it's easy enough to change the fluid on them regularly; less $ and better working synchros is reason enough for me.

With brand new synchro blocker rings in a 2001 T56 I rebuilt, things were a little funky with synth. We will probably do the throwout soon, and I'm going to suggest he switch to non synth to see how it does.

I just don't see the synthetic being necessary in a relatively low heat application, nor improving any other aspect of the operation of the box.

I have some theories on the LT1 vs. LS1 trannies and why one lives and other does not. It's not substandard parts or machining when they use as many identical parts as they do.

I see your point on the automatics and friction behaviour comparitive to a manual and synchro behaviour. But a band or clutch pack sees more application force than a synchro friction surface does, so I feel it's more critical in the manual box.

RB - the WC T5 runs fibre synchros, the late f-body T56s have carbon / kevlar, at least this one does now for sure. The LT1 T56s I believe were running fibre as well. Not sure what the differences are in charactheristics of friction, but I doubt they're identical in behaviour.

With all due respect to the both of you...
Matthew

 

No offense was meant, just that I have had good results with synthetic. Personally, I did it more for performance reasons ( I have witnessed a 10hp difference on the dyno with no other change than going from fresh conventional oil in the engine, trans ,and rearend to synthetic) than anything else, not due to any increased service life. Thats just a plus. Also, the transmission shifts much easier, esp when cold. Having not owned an LS1/M6 combo, I can't say for sure, but in my experience there is no detrimental effect from it on LT1 T56 transmissions, even in higher hp applications.